preference to others, and which, living in interior mountainous regions, are less exposed than littoral species to be drawn off by extraneous agents. As to the Mauritian Islands, it is very difficult to explain, by the fact of transport, the singular affinities connecting their flora with that of the oceanic isles. To suppose some lauds to have disappeared between Madagascar and Australia is a bold hypothesis which will, perhaps, impose itself one day on science—above all, after the results attained by geologists, and recently expressed according to the special studies of Alphonse Milne-Edwards.
The Prairie Gopher.—Among the burrowing species belonging to the squirrel family, the prairie gopher (Spermophilus Richardsoni) holds prominent rank. Though one of the most abundant animals in our country, infesting hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory, almost to the exclusion of other mammalian forms, the prairie gopher has but lately received the honor of an adequate description. This service has been rendered by Dr. Elliott Coues in the pages of the American Naturalist. The habitat of the prairie gopher appears to extend from the Red River of the North to the Rocky Mountains, and from latitude 38° to 55°. So numerous are they in Dakota and Montana that, according to Dr. Coues, should certain portions of these Territories ever be settled, the little gophers will contend with the husbandman for the land more persistently and successfully than the Indians can hope to. The animal seems to be a modification of the chipmunk; in the language of Dr. Coues, "If we take a chipmunk and crop its ears down close, cut off about a third of its tail, give it a blunter muzzle, and make a little alteration in its fore feet so that it could dig better," we have a pretty good prairie gopher. The holes they dig are small, but many of them, like the burrows of the badgers, foxes, and prairie wolves, will admit a horse's hoof. In some regions so numerous are these holes that it is impossible to gallop a hundred yards except at the risk of life or limb.
It is not easy to determine what particular kind of ground the gophers most affect. "Passing over a sterile, cactus-ridden, alkali-laden waste," says Dr. Coues, "there would be so many that I would say, 'This suits them best;' in camp that very night, in some low grassy spot near water, there they would be, plentiful as ever." If the animals have any preference, it is a choice of the lighter and more easily-worked soils; and they seem to haunt especially the slight knolls of the prairie a few feet above the general level. One gopher to a hole is the universal rule, nor has the author ever seen any signs of a burrow being occupied by a pair.
The female brings forth in June, but the young are never seen outside of the burrow till July, when they are about two-thirds grown. The number of young produced at a birth is supposed to be about eight.
Dr. Coues is of the opinion that the gopher is torpid during most of the winter. The animal hoards up food, it is true, but not in sufficient quantity to suffice for so active a creature during an entire winter. The author has often watched them, where the grass was taller than usual, gathering their store. They rise straight up on their haunches, seize the grass-top, and bite it off; then settling down with a peculiar jerk, they sit with arched back, and stow away the provender in their pouches, with the aid of their fore-paws. Their cheek-pouches, both together, would hardly hold a heaping teaspoonful. Though properly a vegetarian, the gopher derives no small share of his summer food from carcasses of buffalo.
Recovery from Lightning-Stroke.—In his valuable work on "The Maintenance of Health," Dr. Fothergill has the following on resuscitation after lightning-stroke: "Persons struck by lightning are not always dead when they appear to be so. There are few recoveries from this state, because no means are tried to restore the sufferer. In the tropics there are many instances of persons, struck down by lightning, recovering after a heavy thunder-shower; and it would appear that cold affusion to the body has a decided action in such cases. The injured cannot be harmed by the free use of cold water, and if only an occasional recovery took place it would be well worth the pains bestowed. The persons so injured should have cold water poured or even dashed freely over them."
